Tag: draw the world

1

Mapping (Geo-)Autobiography: My Mental Map of the World

At the beginning of every semester, I use a mental mapping assignment in World Geography to stress to the students that memorizing maps isn't what geography is all about. But, up until now, I'd never tried it myself. So, last night, I sat down for a few minutes and drew a map. What I came up with was, well, pretty messy and it took up parts of four sheets, but I scanned it and used Photoshop to put it together and... voila! Read more

4

Geographic Literacy: Our Job Isn't Finished

Of course, we all know that maps are not the end-all, be-all of geography; far from it, maps are only a small part of what geographers do.  At the same time, though, maps are useful tools that are crucial, especially to beginning students, in helping represent the world and provide a basis for understanding the more interesting aspects of our field.  With all of this in mind, I'm bringing forth an activity that I do on the first day of every World Regional Geography course I teach.  After we go over the syllabus, I hand each student a blank piece of Hammermill copy paper and give them the following instructions: Draw a map of the world, label what's important. Here are the results. Read more